Naval Station Great Lakes Restores Clock Tower
Navy NewsStand
Story Number: NNS080418-07
Release Date: 4/18/2008 11:51:00 AM
By Scott A. Thornbloom, Naval Service Training Command Public Affairs
NAVAL STATION GREAT LAKES (NNS) -- Naval Station Great Lakes announced the renovation of an historic clock tower, part of Building 1, was completed April 8.
The renovation was part of the Naval Facilities Command $17 million contract to renovate Building 1, where the clock is located, to its original appearance.
David Ceay, 59, a professional clock repairman and amateur Blues harmonica player, finished installing the four clock faces back in the tower.
Ceay arrived at Naval Station Great Lakes to refurbish the faces of the historic clock and to update and modernize the clock's inner workings. Blinderman Construction, who is handling the project, subcontracted Ceay in October to take the four 1,000-pound faces back to his shop, Regulator Time Company. Each face is made up of six numbered segments and several pieces of half-inch-thick glass.
"We took all the segments and pieces of glass back to Kansas. We cleaned up each numbered segment, repainted a few, cut the more than 20 new glass pieces for each face and then sandblasted each piece of glass to give it a nice original look," Ceay said.
Ceay has been repairing, restoring and refurbishing clocks for almost as long as he has been playing the harmonica. Since 1974, he has had an interest in clocks.
"Someone I knew asked me to come to his place and look at all the clocks he had. That's where I got bit with the bug and have been interested in clocks ever since," said Ceay, who was a printer before 1974 and had served in the Army in Germany from 1967 to 1969.
Ceay started out in a small retail shop above a bank in Manhattan, fixing and selling table alarm clocks. He gradually worked up to bigger models, such as Grandfather clocks. He also took time to go to school to learn how to fix watches. In 1977, the city of Manhattan asked him to fix and restore the clock in the county (Riley) courthouse. For Ceay a new bug had just bitten, working on clock towers.
"I love the challenge of fixing and restoring clocks in towers. I don't have a problem with heights and am very comfortable working up high. I also like the travel I get to do," he said.
Since the Riley County Courthouse clock, Ceay has repaired and refurbished clocks in Texas, Michigan, Illinois, Kentucky, Louisiana and in the Caribbean.
The clocks are close to 100-years-old or older. The oldest clock Ceay has worked is an 1840 tower clock in Kentucky.
Ceay said he worked through the winter on the project and was finished in February but had to wait for good weather to bring everything back. "We had to haul up each segment and piece by hand more than 100 feet. The wind made it very interesting," Ceay said.
Once all the Roman numeral segments and glass was hauled up to the nine-foot-in-diameter open holes of each side of the tower, Ceay went to work with the help of a couple of Blinderman laborers installing the segments and glass. Each face took about a day-and-a-half to complete.
"I'm really happy with the finished product," he said. "The face is going to be beautiful, especially at night and it will be historically accurate, which is what the Navy wanted."
The inside of the clock tower will be modern and technically advanced.
Each face has a global positioning satellite (GPS) locator attached to it on the outside. This will be used to accurately keep the time of the clock. Directly behind each face is a small box, or movement, of electronics and computer chips. Each movement, that moves the aluminum hands, is wired into a controller mounted to the wall that relays the information from the GPS locators outside. The controller then relays the time information to each movement to move the hands with just 24 volts of power.
"This will keep the clock accurate to the second," Ceay said. "There is also a computer chip inside the controller that will maintain the time, in case power is knocked out. When the power comes back on, the hands will automatically proceed to the right time."
Although one of his tougher and more challenging jobs because of the number of segments, glass pieces, the four faces and some strong wind, Ceay said he wouldn't have missed it.
"It's funny. I started out as a fairly young guy doing small clock jobs. Now I'm almost 60 and doing these clock towers and loving every minute."
For more news from Naval Service Training Command, visit www.navy.mil/local/greatlakes/.
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